Connecticut head coach Kevin Ollie gestures during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Arkansas in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer) less

Connecticut head coach Kevin Ollie gestures during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Arkansas in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017. (AP ... more

Photo: Craig Mitchelldyer / Associated Press

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Arkansas forward Darious Hall shoots against UConn during the second half in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., on Sunday.

Arkansas forward Darious Hall shoots against UConn during the second half in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., on Sunday.

Photo: Craig Mitchelldyer / Associated Press

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Arkansas guard Jaylen Barford, right, shoots over Connecticut guard Antwoine Anderson during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer) less

Arkansas guard Jaylen Barford, right, shoots over Connecticut guard Antwoine Anderson during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., ... more

Photo: Craig Mitchelldyer / Associated Press

Arkansas routs UConn men in PK80 finale

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PORTLAND, Oregon — UConn flew 3,000 miles out to the Pacific Northwest to get a gauge of where it stands among one of the best preseason tournament fields ever assembled.

Turns out, the Huskies aren’t ready for prime time. And that’s even after a first-round win over the de-facto home team that went to the Final Four last season.

UConn was blown out of the Moda Center in a PK80 Invitational Victory Bracket third-place game on Sunday by an Arkansas team that’s good but not great. The Huskies (4-2) certainly made the Razorbacks look better than they probably are.

Forty minutes of hell? Try UConn’s worst loss in 40 years. It’s the Huskies’ most lopsided loss since a 101-61 setback at Syracuse on Nov. 30, 1977.

“It’s a tough loss, but it’s just one loss and you’ve got to go back to the drawing board,” coach Kevin Ollie said. “We’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror. That’s including me, that’s every player. Because our defensive effort wasn’t there. We’ve got to move our feet, play with pride, rebound. And we didn’t have the effort in transition.”

Arkansas (5-1) was never really threatened. The Razorbacks led 41-21 with about five minutes left in the first half after making 15 of their first 22 shots. Coupled with Michigan State hitting 12 of its final 13 shots in a 20-point win over the Huskies two nights earlier, UConn had allowed its opponents to shoot 77 percent (27-for-35) over about a 25-minute span of basketball.

Simply unacceptable.

“First half, they came out blazing, making every shot,” Ollie said. “We’ve got to come out with a better effort. I’ve got to get them prepared better. But, when a team gets that hot, it’s kind of hard to stop them.”

Added junior guard Jalen Adams: “I think we have to come out with energy from the start of the game. I know we can do it, we’ve just got to actually come out and do it and maintain it throughout the whole game.”

The Huskies weren’t a whole lot better on the other end of the floor, though they managed to cut their deficit to 45-31 by halftime.

UConn’s lone chance to make it a game came within the first couple of minutes of the latter half. The Huskies closed to within 10, and had a chance to get within eight, but Josh Carlton was called for traveling on a fast-break layup attempt.

Barford responded with a tough, fallaway 3-pointer with the shot clock winding down to kill any Husky momentum.

With 16:53 left, Terry Larrier could have cut it to eight with a wide-open corner 3-pointer but missed. Again, Barford countered with a trey. Indeed, the teams traded baskets over the next couple of minutes, the Razorbacks countering UConn’s comeback attempt at every turn.

Arkansas eventually put the game away with an 11-0 run that made it 64-41.

“We’re getting the sets we want,” said Ollie. “At the end of the day, you’ve got to get stops. You don’t get stops, they’re gonna get in transition. If you break down the tape, we’ve got plenty of shots in the first half that we can make. That’s what we run our offense for. At the end of the day, we’ve got to make shots, cut harder and put guys in position.”

Ultimately, UConn flew home Sunday night after going 1-2 in the tourney, with only a win over a talented but inexperienced Oregon team to show for it.

“It’s a great learning experience,” Adams said. “You can learn a lot about a team and the competition level. We know we want to be in the tournament, we’ve got to come out better, match the intensity. We know where we’ve got to build from here on out.”

RIM RATTLINGS: Alterique Gilbert, who banged his shoulder early in the second half of Friday night’s loss to Michigan State, was clearly affected by the injury, scoring just one point in 17 minutes.

Terry Larrier turned his ankle late in the game and went to the bench. Ollie didn’t have a report on the extent of the junior wing’s injury.

In his most significant 13 minutes of the season so far, redshirt freshman forward Mamadou Diarra played well, scoring four points and grabbing a team-high five rebounds.

“He played with a lot of juice,” said Ollie. “I was very proud of Mamadou’s minutes. He came in and affected the game in a positive way.”